


Traveling Through the Dark

by dogstarr



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogstarr/pseuds/dogstarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unexpected things happen to Dean Winchester.  You'd think he'd be used to it by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traveling Through the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Traveling Through the Dark](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/21561) by William Stafford. 



Dean slumped against the passenger door of the Impala and sank slowly to the ground. Sitting in the darkness along some no-name country road, he closed his eyes and rested his head on his knees. The denim felt damp on his forehead and crickets were chirping so goddam loud it made his head swim. He knew it was the adrenaline, sharpening his senses and making him feel every stone under his ass, every breath of night air on his skin. He took several deep breaths to calm himself down. But he could still see it. In the dark, but lit by the Impala’s high beams, a dead deer lay slumped on the road in front of the car. 

He’d killed it clean and the light was fading from deer’s eyes by the time he’d jumped out to see how bad it was. It was bad, but clean, and Dean knew that was a good thing. But as he watched, crouching on blacktop, the deer’s belly shuddered and moved, and then became still. It was a doe. A pregnant doe. 

Winchesters just couldn’t get away from killing, whether in hell, in purgatory, or right here, in the middle of backwards ass nowhere Wisconsin. He’d gone out to gas up the car and buy a few groceries while Sam checked them into the motel. A milk run, in the true sense of the word. He chuckled grimly when he thought of that one. He had just wanted a nice quiet drive, with the windows down and car humming along in the spring air, then maybe a quiet night watching some dumb movie with Sam. But things never worked out like that for Dean Winchester, did they.

God, he was tired. The unendingness it all. The killing, the fighting, the hunting, even the saving. Tired of all of it. He knew why Sam had taken the year off, even if he wouldn’t admit it, especially to Sam. Really, who wouldn’t want out of this life, when you couldn’t even drive down a goddam country road with killing something. Sitting with his back against the cool metal of the car door, in the darkness with no one around, tears started to fall, one by one down his cheek, and he let them. Because of Benny back in purgatory, and Bobby and Sam, his mom and every other casualty of “the life.” For the two lives he’d ended that night, without ever meaning to.

He felt the swish of wings before he heard it. Dean lifted his head back to rest against the car door, but made no attempt to wipe the tears from his eyes. He was too tired to care. It was dark and really, what was the use of trying to hide anything from a goddam celestial being anyway. But of course, even now, he couldn’t be left in peace to cry by himself on the roadside. 

“I didn’t call you Cas.” Dean’s voice sounded rough and loud in his own ears.

“I know Dean.” He heard Cas move closer, crunching gravel under his well-worn shoes. “You don’t have to call me. I hear you.”

“Creepy Cas.” Dean said, eyes still closed. He waited, concentrating on feeling the cool metal along his back. Maybe Cas would get the hint that he wasn’t in a talking mood and flutter back to wherever he came from. 

What must have been at least a few minutes passed with only the crickets chirping in the background. No movement, wings or otherwise. He should have known he couldn’t out-wait an angel. 

“What do you want Cas?”

The angel moved a step closer and Dean could feel him hovering above. A rustle then, not of wings, but of trench coat, as Cas crouched down beside him. Dean had no idea what the angel had on his mind, but Cas could zap him off to anyplace he wanted or stab him with an angel blade for all he cared. Dean planned on sitting here and just letting it happen. 

But he didn’t expected what did happened next, which was the brush of two fingers against his cheek. Dean didn’t flinch, but he opened his eyes. Still crouched beside him, Cas looked down at his own fingers, rubbing them together where they were still wet with tears. 

Dean knew he should be appalled. The voice that he always heard in his head told him to lash out in anger, or with sarcasm, to push Cas away. But he didn’t. He didn’t have the energy and it was just Cas here on the side of the road. Cas who didn’t respond to anger or sarcasm anyway, and really, what was the point. So he watched as Cas gazed, fascinated, at his fingers. A heartbeat later, those blue eyes looked up, and Castiel cocked his head and stared at Dean with that familiar unfaltering gaze. Dean felt his eyes fill again. “I hit a deer Cas” he heard himself say, his voice breaking on the last word. “A pregnant deer.” And Cas reached out, slowly and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean felt the warmth, the heaviness of it, and it felt familiar and good. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back into his knees. Just a few more minutes, really, and he would be ready to get up and do what needed to be done.

Dean felt a gentle squeeze and then pressure on his shoulder as Cas stood up. He heard him move towards the front of the car, no doubt assessing the job of getting the deer out of the road. Just a few more minutes, Dean thought again, a few more minutes to get his shit together and he would be up to putting an end to this weird, crappy night. He took several deep breaths into the fabric of his jeans. He could do this. 

A moment later a soft scuffle on the gravel brought his head up. He knew the sound even before he opened his eyes. The deer stood, not three feet away, looking at him in the darkness. Cas stood front of the car, illuminated in the headlights. For a moment more, the deer stared at Dean. Then in one smooth motion, it cocked its head in a way that seemed somehow familiar, and leapt into the darkness at the side of the road.

Cas walked to stand in front of Dean. He reached a hand down as Dean reached up, and in a minute they were standing face to face by the side of the road. 

“Sometimes good things do happen Dean” Cas said, with the slight smile Dean knew well by now. 

“Yah, you keep reminding me of that.” Dean said. And he hoped his own thin smile conveyed just how much that meant.


End file.
